Identity Fraud

Introduction to Identity Fraud

Fraud arising from stolen identity information is a serious plague for consumers and businesses that continues to rise, and causes financial losses, and inconvenience.

What is PII? It is information pertaining to an individual – such as Name, Address, Phone Number, Government ID info, Email Address, Usernames, Passwords, Credit Card Numbers, PIN numbers, etc.

How is PII stolen?

Some methods include

Once stolen, PII information is directly used for fraud, or bought and sold on the Dark Web.

Imposters can use someone else’s PII information for a variety of fraud. Some of these are:

Opening new credit card accounts, new loan accounts, New phone accounts, new accounts for various goods/services.
Taking over existing credit card accounts, bank accounts, email accounts and siphoning away funds & resources, and using the reputation of the existing account for more fraud.
Transacting using stolen credit card info.

Identity fraud Reports

Magnitude of Identity Fraud

Impact of Identity Fraud

Fraudsters are increasingly turning their attention to identity theft as other fraud opportunities dwindle (chip and pin making it harder to commit payment fraud). It is not easy to predict identity-based fraud as existing tools are proving inadequate. All industries are suffering from identity theft and it is not just a Financial Institution (FI) issue anymore

$16.9 Billion Losses due to Identity Fraud in 2019 across all industries
T48 Million Victims of Identify fraud in the United States, 21% victims multiple times
Besides Losses, Financial Services industry spends ~ $3 Billion annually in Fraud Prevention tools, resources and technology solutions